Made some feed hay using Krone baler-short square bales.

[Hay Dude]

Will they fit inside the fancy feeder?

My customers Hay Huts?
Yes.
They are 6’x6’ so 5’ long cube will fit.
I may increase size to 5.5’. Still in experimental stage for size and pressure.

 

[Hay Dude]

I've never experienced but a very few major break downs since 1987 on my rd balers except belt replacement about ever 20,000 bales & a brg now & then. Several yrs ago I failed to check slip clutch it was seized & gearbox shaft broke when I plugged baler with hay but that was my fault. About 25 yrs ago I did have a brg fail that caused a baler fire but baler was covered by insurance.
What were some of the major rd baler breakdowns you refer to?

I never said I had any major breakdowns. Just said ”I will say I have had plenty of $ spent fixing round balers, too.”
I have had a few rolls break off where they attach to the side sheets of the baler frame (probably from trying to make the bales with too much pressure), electric actuator arm failures, bearing failure & fire with belt damage.

Not as much as a large square baler to fix, but still have had repairs.

Round balers are a great way to pack a lot of hay into a bale. I don’t regret the 15 years I made them.
My main issue with them is we bale a LOT of hilly ground. It became too time consuming to make the bales, cycle the wrap, then scurry off to a flat spot to dump them. Also, round bales are more difficult to sell than square bales, in MY area.
I also like the speed of continuous baling-can get a field square baled in less than 1/2 the time, allowing me to get more fields baled. Also enjoy the way they stack on the trucks or trailer. They are much less dramatic to load in uneven fields on trailers and transport over the road.

 

[Rustyiron]

I bet you're customers will love them for storage reasons, and you should see an advantage hauling them.
Do you sell by the ton or bale?
I'd almost think that it would be a "wash" by not hauling air space back from the field and during delivery.

 

[Hay Dude]

Thanks!
We shall see if it was the right decision-so far it feels right (although my bank account is a bit lighter lol)
I sure am enjoying putting the equivalent almost 2 round bales into just 1 large square.
We had been using the Hesston for a few years for mushroom hay and the round baler for feed hay. After handling 1500-2000 round bales per year for feed hay, the baling of them on hills and the storage of them became time consuming.
Then I thought “what if I could make a short large square bale from the tractor cab?
When the opportunity came along to buy the Krone last fall, I jumped on it.
Only time will tell how it works out.

Heres some from yesterday’s baling

I like the way they stack, too

 

[Rustyiron]

It's amazing how much different bailing equipment is out there and how much it costs. I imagine that it's the same everywhere that the small squares are king in terms of price to the producer for the least amount of hay, but there's no such thing as a couple of young boys hanging around willing to put it up for a few bucks. Enter the various small squares "accumulator" systems, stack wagons, etc. and you have a huge investment in equipment, more than enough to put those 2 boys through med school!
I think that you've landed yourself in a reasonable middle ground and good luck this hay season.

 

[Tx Jim]

I can understand how large sq bales would have a large advantage over rd bales when baling on hilly ground. And large sq bales are much more stable than rd bales when transporting on trailers

 

[Hay Dude]

It's amazing how much different bailing equipment is out there and how much it costs. I imagine that it's the same everywhere that the small squares are king in terms of price to the producer for the least amount of hay, but there's no such thing as a couple of young boys hanging around willing to put it up for a few bucks. Enter the various small squares "accumulator" systems, stack wagons, etc. and you have a huge investment in equipment, more than enough to put those 2 boys through med school!
I think that you've landed yourself in a reasonable middle ground and good luck this hay season.

Pretty sure someone could make a better baling operation on paper for me that would show a cost savings if I did it a different way, but there’s something to be said about quality and enjoyment of life that needs to be added to the way any of us make a living.
I think it would have been cheaper to make a mix of round bales for feed and large squares for mushroom hay, but the different balers requiring different tractors, bale forks, etc and the hilly ground was leaving me too stressed out.

Here’s a small sample of my rolling ground. Not my steepest, either. Round bales would have to be shuttled down to bottom of the hill and dumped. Very time consuming.

Going to all square with shorter length square bales for feed just takes the stress down a few pegs. That’s worth something to me.

 

[LouNY]

Yep, so much fun opening a baler, and then the bale starts to takeoff on it's own.
Amazing how far some of them can go and the brush and trees they can run over and bounce off of.

 

[Hay Dude]

Yep, so much fun opening a baler, and then the bale starts to takeoff on it's own.
Amazing how far some of them can go and the brush and trees they can run over and bounce off of.

Had one get away from me a few years back and swear it was going 40MPH. Hit a bump, became airborne and broke a 5” limb off a tree. Would have easily killed someone.
Had another roll into woods at high speed and come to a rest next to a deer hunting blind.

 

[LouNY]

Pretty sure someone could make a better baling operation on paper for me that would show a cost savings if I did it a different way, but there’s something to be said about quality and enjoyment of life that needs to be added to the way any of us make a living.
I think it would have been cheaper to make a mix of round bales for feed and large squares for mushroom hay, but the different balers requiring different tractors, bale forks, etc and the hilly ground was leaving me too stressed out.

Here’s a small sample of my rolling ground. Not my steepest, either. Round bales would have to be shuttled down to bottom of the hill and dumped. Very time consuming.

View attachment 751618
Going to all square with shorter length square bales for feed just takes the stress down a few pegs. That’s worth something to me.

Looks a lot like our ground up here in upstate NY. That looks to be a good sized field,
so much of ours is small field 3-5 acres some 6-8 and just a few larger ones.
Some of the larger operations are still burying stone walls and putting in considerable drainage to
make larger fields for their big equipment.